The STS Conference Graz 2015 is the joint annual conference of
STS – Institute of Science, Technology and Society Studies at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt|Vienna|Graz
IFZ – Inter-University Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture and
IAS-STS – Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society.

Daniel Barben, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt|Vienna|Graz, STS – Institute of Science, Technology and Society Studies: title of keynote to be confirmed

Harald Rohracher, Linköping University, Department of Thematic Studies, Technology and Social Change: title of the keynote to be confirmed

Els Rommes, Radboud University Nijmegen, Institute for Gender Studies: title of keynote to be confirmed

Simon le Roux, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Architecture: “Social sustainability assessment tools in the early planning of refurbishment and infill development in Finland”

PARTICIPANTS

The STS Conference Graz 2015 invites interested researchers (especially postgraduates and young researchers) in the areas of science, technology and society studies and sustainability studies to give presentations. The conference provides a forum to discuss on a broad variety of topics in these fields – especially abstracts are encouraged which include aspects of the below mentioned conference themes and sessions.

ABSTRACTS

Abstracts should include no more than 250 words, comprising detailed contact information, affiliation and specification of the conference theme and session you are referring to.
Abstracts should be sent to Michaela Jahrbacher (sts-conf-graz@aau.at ) until January 15, 2015 as a DOC/DOCX-file.

The UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Systems, together with WAAS-World Academy of Art and Science, ISSS-International Society for the Systems Sciences, the Advanced Design Network, and the Department of Sociology and Social Sciences of the University
of Trento, is organizing the First International Conference on ANTICIPATION
5-7 November 2015, Trento (Italy)
Anticipation is coming to the fore as an emerging field of study that is influencing a wide variety of disciplines. This international conference will explore the interaction among anticipation, uncertainty and complexity. Some questions that we intend to raise are
these: When does anticipation occur in behavior and life? What types of anticipation can be distinguished? What structures and processes are necessary for anticipatory action? How can anticipation be modeled? A better and more complete understanding of
anticipation and its effects will improve theories and models of individual and collective human behavior and its consequences. The ability to anticipate in complex environments may improve the resilience of societies facing threats from a global proliferation of
agents and forces by articulating uncertainties through anticipatory processes.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to
 Anticipation in the human and social sciences,
 Anticipation and decision-making,
 Anticipation and global social challenges,
 Anticipatory governance and the resilience of societies,
 Anticipation and Futures Studies,
 Anticipation in fiction, the arts, design and gaming,
 Modeling anticipation.
Invited Speakers: Arjun Appadurai, Jens Beckert, Julian Bleecker, Riel Miller, Martin Seligman, and Erik Olin Wright.
Program committee: Roberto Poli (chair), Flaviano Celaschi, Keri Facer, Garry Jacobs, John Kineman, and Giuseppe Sciortino.
The Conference’s Program Committee invites proposals for sessions to be held in conjunction with the main conference. Further information is available from http://www.projectanticipation.org, the website of the UNESCO Chair in Anticipatory Systems.
Recognising the importance of Anticipation, special issues of the journals Axiomathes, Cadmus, European Journal of Futures Research, and Futures will be published from peer reviewed conference contributions.
Conference fee:
 Early registration (before 1 September 2015): € 150
 Late registration (from 1 September 2015): € 200
Relevant dates:
 Deadline for individual abstracts: 30 April 2015
 Acceptance/rejection: 15 May 2015
 Final Program: 30 June 2015
 Early registration: Before 1 September 2015
 Deadline registration: 15 October 2015
 Conference: 5-7 November 2015

Increasing social inequalities, exacerbated by neoliberal policies and international economic crisis, have been an issue of science and technology studies (STS) even prior to the crisis. Instead of normative claims about the socially beneficial or harmful role of science and technology, a more complex sociological perspective has been promoted. This perspective, postulating that S&T impacts are closely interrelated to social context and circumstances has the potential to be more productive in studying the relationship between techno-scientific development and social inequalities. The global economy, with its increasing role of S&T, seems to increase inequalities within contemporary societies, as well as between them. Therefore, it has become crucial and urgent to not only understand how science and technology influence the increase in and different forms of inequality, but also how these factors can help to mitigate inequality, primarily through S&T policies.

A tension has been recognized between the dominant concept of the knowledge economy paradigm (focused on science-based industries and profitable knowledge) and broader social objectives already built into the EU’s Lisbon Agenda. Such conflicting economic and social approaches have been reflected in recent ERA (European Research Area) policy. For example, the aim of achieving European competitiveness in S&T which stresses research excellence is accompanied by some re-distributive goals of the ERA, such as networking and collaboration, gender equality and greater European research cohesion at both regional and local levels. The meritocratic recruitment of researchers, professional competition and mobility all support achieving excellence, but can also undermine some social objectives like gender equity or more equal national and regional techno-scientific development.

Conflicting economic and social paradigms and objectives of understanding, as well as dealing with inequalities in and through science and technology, require the mobilization of the attention and imagination of sociologists and other social scientists.

Thus, the Sociology of Science and Technology Network (SSTNET) invites papers to its sessions on S&T inequalities and differences, their structural, representational and distributional forms, (re)production, their reflections on S&T policy, human resources, science governance and accountability mechanisms, as well as the socio-economic impacts of established and emerging technologies. Papers may also touch on any of the following general issues by raising conceptual and/or empirical questions:

Inequalities through science and technology

Scientific controversies regarding the forms and origins of inequality

Studies of science, technology and inequality across countries and groups

Differences and tensions regarding knowledge production and social organization

between public and private S&T sectors

Socio-economic implications of new technologies and social inequalities

S&T policies in the face of global inequalities

NIS (national innovation systems) approaches and the mobilization of S&T against

Distribution of power, decision-making about S&T and public participation

Inter-university and intra-university differences in performance and excellence

Research excellence, cumulative advantage and professional differentiation

Researchers’ mobility in terms of international circulation and inequality

Gender inequality in S&T

Measure or metrics of inequalities within the scientific community

Papers addressing these and other STS topics from a sociological, other social or interdisciplinary perspective are welcome. PhD students’ submissions are especially encouraged. Authors are invited to submit their abstracts to the general session. Specific sessions will be created a posteriori. Abstracts should not exceed 250 words. The deadline for abstract submission is 01 February 2015. Abstracts must be submitted online to the submission platform: www.esa12thconference.eu. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed and selected for presentation by the SSTNET organizing committee and the letter of notification will be sent by the conference software system in early April 2015.

NJSTS 2(2) features articles about science communication policies (Hetland), the interplay between scientific and local expertise in determining risk (Solli and Ryghaug) and the use of social media platforms in corporate settings (Pettersen), as well as reviews of works on electricity markets, northern landscapes, reproductive medicine and aluminum.

Interdisciplinarity is one of the most prominent ideas driving science policy today. It is applied widely as a conception of what particularly creative and socially relevant science should consist of, whether natural or social science. For the last 40 years researchers have built up a substantial body of literature constructing various visions of what interdisciplinarity should be like. Until recently, however, there has been little concern for how it is practiced in distinct research settings and fields. This brings to the fore the need to pay particular attention to the methodological and conceptual resources required to investigate and understand interdisciplinary research in action.

Interdisciplinarity in science is often highly situated, distributed, and dynamic. It takes many forms and varieties, from occasional transfer of models and methods across disciplinary boundaries to the resources of one field being used for criticizing convictions in another. Interdisciplinarity may also be a matter of intensive ongoing collaboration solving complex problems with novel approaches. This type of collaboration requires negotiation of epistemic standards, trust and reliability, the coordination of expertise, and the distribution of tasks. Interdisciplinarity is thus a multidimensional and multi-scale phenomenon involving a rich interplay of established and novel scientific methodologies, expert and social cognition, disciplinary preferences and values, historical relationships, and institutional and policy frameworks.

Sociology, anthropology, history, cognitive science, philosophy, economics, etc. bring with them a variety of methodological approaches for analyzing interdisciplinary practice. Each affords an in-depth understanding of particular instances of this practice, its history and cultural underpinnings. We invite contributions that introduce, discuss, and reflect upon distinct methodological perspectives ? both empirical and theoretical ? on interdisciplinarity in science. Examples are analytic, ethnographic, social epistemological, scientometric, discourse analytic, and historical perspectives. The papers should demonstrate the affordances and challenges of the respective approaches by relating them to specific cases.

The central objectives of our Workshop are:
-To create an awareness for affordances and limitations of the respective approaches.
-To explore opportunities for combining approaches toward developing a more comprehensive understanding of interdisciplinary practice in its different configurations and characteristics.

The Workshop will bring together scholars from the broad range of humanities and social sciences studying scientific practice and culture. A selection of the Workshop papers will be published as a special issue of a major journal and/or an edited volume.

Invited Speakers and Topics

Mitchell Ash, University of Vienna: Interdisciplinarity in Historical Perspective